


Maybe It Started Like This

by dance_across



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anxiety, Blow Jobs, Canon Compliant, Episode 9 Adjacent, Existential Crisis, First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, Masturbation, POV Victor, Phone Sex, Spanking, Submissive Victor, Victor's Foot Thing, Yuuri Discovers His Inner Dom, Yuuri's poster collection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-25 18:40:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9838433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dance_across/pseuds/dance_across
Summary: “Can you switch to video?” Victor asks. “I want to show you something.”





	1. time slips to nothing

**Author's Note:**

> Epic thanks to [airspaniel](http://archiveofourown.org/users/airspaniel/pseuds/airspaniel) for the beta, for the validation, and for letting me yell about this fic for like a solid month.
> 
> Chapter titles taken from the lyrics to "Suspended" by Matt Nathanson. Go listen to this song and join me in Victuuri hell.
> 
> A Russian translation of this work is available over at [Ficbook.net](https://ficbook.net/readfic/6698266)!

It’s nearly four in the morning when Yuuri finally calls, the soft chime of the phone pulling Victor out of sleep fast enough that he picks up before it can ring a second time.

“Yuuri,” he says.

“Victor.” The voice on the other end is so familiar, so dear. “Did I wake you up?”

“Of course you did,” says Victor. “I told you to.”

“Yeah, but…”

Yuuri sounds worried. This in itself isn’t unusual, but considering the circumstances?

“You made it,” Victor says, because there’s no point in pretending this isn’t what Yuuri wants to talk about. “That’s all that matters.”

“On a technicality,” Yuuri shoots back. Victor sits up, rolling the sleep from his shoulders, blinking himself further awake by the dim light of the moon outside. Yuuri’s clearly been gearing up for this conversation all evening, and Victor needs to be right there with him in spirit. It’s the least he can do, given that he can’t be there in person. Yuuri goes on: “Michele placed third. I didn’t even make the podium, and it’s me advancing to the Grand Prix Final. I know it’s fair, and I know it’s just the way the numbers came together, but it doesn’t feel—it feels—I feel like I cheated.”

“You didn’t cheat,” Victor says.

“I know!” Yuuri practically shouts. Then he sighs. “I’m sorry. I just… I know it’s stupid. But that’s how it feels, though. And it’s my fault. I didn’t skate well.”

“You skated beautifully,” Victor says, clutching his phone harder. “Could you have done better? Yes, and I won’t waste your time telling you how, because that will keep until you’re back here and we can start training again. Could you have kept yourself from getting lost inside your own head? Maybe, and make no mistake, we’ll talk about that too. But, Yuuri, could anyone else have given a voice to that program the way you did? Anyone at all?”

Silence.

“Yuuri, that was not a rhetorical question. Can anyone else, except you, skate your free program with the meaning that you bring to it?”

Yuuri’s voice is small: “…no?”

“I can’t hear you,” Victor sing-songs into the phone.

“No. Nobody can.”

“Once more for the folks in the last row?”

“No!” Yuuri declares, and he almost sounds like he means it. “Nobody can skate it but me. _Nobody_.”

“There we are,” says Victor, grinning into the dark room. “You’re advancing to the Final because you deserve to. As soon as we hang up, I want you to look into the mirror and say that to yourself. Understand?”

“All right—Wait, are you hanging up _now_?”

Victor’s breath hitches at the raw need in Yuuri’s voice. “No, no. Of course not. I can talk for as long as you want.”

“Okay,” Yuuri says. “Okay. I just. Sorry, I feel bad waking you up. I wish we could have talked earlier.”

Victor wishes that, too. He spent all evening wishing it, starting the moment Yuuri buried his face in Yakov’s shoulder after his free skate was finished, his need for comfort broadcast worldwide to anyone with a television and an interest in skating.

Victor texted, of course, with a request for Yuuri to call; it was Yuuri who texted back with _Press everywhere. Interviews about GPF. Too many things happening. Talk later?_

Victor’s reply: _Call me as soon as you get back to your hotel room. I don’t care how late it is. CALL._

“Me too,” he replies now.

“Victor, I…”

Silence. Victor digs the fingernails of his free hand into his thigh. He knows that tone. He knows the face that goes with it, too. Yuuri is on the verge of tears, and Victor feels anew just how far away Moscow is from Hasetsu.

“What is it?” Victor asks softly.

“I… I didn’t…”

“Yuuri?” Gently, gently.

Yuuri draws in a shaky breath. “I don’t… I don’t think I realized how much I’d gotten used to you… being here. At night. With me.”

Victor’s nails dig in harder, almost to the point of pain. Of course. Every hotel they’ve stayed in, it’s been the two of them, together. He’s gotten used to it, too. He flips the light on and asks Yuuri, “Can you switch to video? I want to show you something.”

“Um. Hold on.”

It takes a minute, but then there it is: Yuuri’s face, filling the screen of Victor’s phone. His hair looks freshly washed: wet and unruly. The glittery remnants of his makeup still cling to the skin near his eyes, because glitter, as they both know, can survive the most thorough of showers. His eyelids are drooping slightly behind his glasses. He is tired and worn, and he is the most beautiful thing Victor has ever seen.

He smiles and waves. “Hi.”

“My lovely Yuuri,” Victor says, and kisses the air. Which makes Yuuri blush.

Sometimes, Victor is certain he could forsake food altogether and live only on the sight of Yuuri blushing.

“What did you want to show me?” Yuuri asks. “You aren’t naked again, are you?”

Victor isn’t naked, but he smiles into the camera as though he is. He tilts his head just so: sultry, secretive, seductive. It’s an angle he can pull off in his sleep. It’s an angle he can pull off even five minutes _after_ sleep. Then he pulls the phone away from his face and tilts it right, then left, giving Yuuri as much of a view as possible.

When Yuuri realizes, he actually claps a hand over his mouth, not quite stifling the burst of laughter that escapes him. It’s a few seconds before he lets his fingers slip down again so he can speak.

“That’s my room,” he says, nearly breathless.

“It is,” says Victor.

“You were sleeping in my room.”

Victor gives the camera his best smile. “It smells like you.”

Yuuri’s jaw goes slack. One hand creeps up to scratch at the back of his neck. His face is bright, bright red. “Oh,” he says. “Oh.”

“What I’m saying,” Victor continues, bringing the camera closer to his face again, “is that I miss you, too.”

Yuuri nods, slowly, more to himself than for Victor’s benefit. He licks his lips. Starts to say something, then stops himself. “Um,” he says, and rubs his free hand over his forehead. “Um. You can say no, but. But. Will you stay on the phone with me while I, you know, get ready? For bed?”

“Yuuri. Of course I will.”

Yuuri smiles. It looks more relieved than happy. “You don’t mind?”

Mind? There’s nothing in the world that Victor wants more. Except possibly to be there in person. To watch as Yuuri putters around the hotel room, brushing his teeth and washing his face and making sure his glasses are somewhere safe for the night. Stripping down to his underwear and sliding between the sheets.

These days, when they share a hotel room, Victor slides right in after him. Yuuri will curl into his side, or Victor will turn him over and cradle him, Victor’s front to Yuuri’s back. Or they’ll face each other, stealing kisses and whispering in the dark and touching each other’s faces, necks, shoulders. Chests, sometimes, but no further, not yet. Not because Victor doesn’t want it. He does. He wants to touch all of Yuuri, and he wants Yuuri to touch all of him. He wants them to crawl into each other’s bodies, folding into one another until they both forget how to exist apart.

He’s wanted that for such a long time.

But, more than any of this, he wants Yuuri to be comfortable. To feel safe. So he hasn’t pushed. He’s made his interest crystal clear, but he hasn’t pushed.

“No,” Victor says. “I don’t mind at all.”

Yuuri smiles—a smile that falters almost immediately. “Actually. Sorry, but can I leave you here for a second? I have to go to the bathroom.”

Victor’s laughter bursts out of him like a rainbow. “Abandoning me already?” he teases. “I’m hurt, Yuuri. I’ll never recover.”

“I’ll be right back!” Yuuri replies, and sets the phone down. Victor can’t tell where, but he has a perfect view of the hotel room’s ceiling. The ceiling that gets to share a hotel room with Yuuri.

What Victor wouldn’t give to trade places with that ceiling right now.

“Fuck you, ceiling,” he says softly, and waits for Yuuri to return.

-

Yuuri gets ready for bed slowly, chatting with Victor all the while. Propping the phone behind the faucet as he washes his face. Propping it up on the desk as he strips off most of his clothes. Propping it up on the floor, somehow, as he does his evening stretches.

Victor has to remind him to brush his teeth.

Yuuri gives him a pointed look, but complies—which gives Victor a return trip to behind-the-faucet, and a close-up view of Yuuri spitting toothpaste out of his mouth. It’s white and frothy and Victor comes _this close_ to saying, “You should try swallowing sometime.”

But he doesn’t.

He is very proud of himself.

“Happy?” Yuuri asks, when he’s finished.

“Very,” Victor replies. “Now go to bed. You’ve had a long day.”

So Yuuri does. He turns out all the lights except for the one on the bedside table, and he slips between the sheets, and… he hesitates. “We should probably hang up, right?”

No. They should not hang up.

“Do _you_ want to hang up?” Victor asks.

It’s too dark to tell for sure, but it looks like Yuuri’s blushing again. “Not… really…”

“Then no.”

Yuuri smiles, takes off his glasses, and puts his head down on the pillow. Uses one hand to bunch it up under his neck for support, while the other hand holds his phone. Victor does the same, curling Yuuri’s pillow under his head. They are both lying on their sides. They could almost, Victor thinks, reach out and touch each other.

“Victor?” says Yuuri.

“Yuuri,” says Victor.

Yuuri smiles. “If you were here with me, right now… um. Um. What would you do?”

“I’d kiss you,” Victor replies, without even bothering to think about it. “And I’d keep on kissing you until you begged me to stop.”

The smile unfurls, slowly, into a grin. “What if I didn’t beg you to stop?”

“Well, then, I’d just have to keep going, wouldn’t I?”

Yuuri laughs. “I guess so. Yeah. That sounds nice.”

“Mm,” says Victor.

“Then what?”

“Mm?”

“What about after?” Yuuri asks. “Would you… would we… how, um.” He’s blushing furiously now; there’s no mistaking it. When he speaks again, his voice is almost a whisper. “How would you hold me, if you were here tonight?”

Heat curls in Victor’s stomach, and he lets out a long breath, longer than it should be, just to keep himself from trying to jump through his phone screen and into Yuuri’s bed. He can’t lose himself to instinct. Not yet. If Yuuri’s going where Victor thinks he’s going—and _is_ he? is he really?—then Victor needs to keep his head on straight. He needs to be mindful.

“I think,” Victor replies, “that I’d like to see your face. We could share a pillow.”

“Where would your hands be?” Yuuri asks.

Victor’s breath stutters in his lungs. There are so many ways that this conversation could go, and each possibility is better than the last.

“My hands. Well, I think one arm would be folded under my head, like this”—Victor adjusts his arm, and the pillow along with it, making sure the camera angle is wide enough to capture it—“and the other would be around you. I’d rub your back. You carry so much tension there, and I’d like to try to loosen it up for you.”

“That sounds nice,” Yuuri says, turning his face into the pillow, almost shyly. But one eye is still visible, still fixed on his phone, and he adds, “What next?”

“Next,” Victor says, still impressively calm, if he does say so himself, “I think I’d move my hand to your ribs. So I could feel you breathing.”

Yuuri smiles. “I like it when you do that.”

That’s when Victor notices that Yuuri’s phone isn’t moving anymore. The image is steady—Yuuri’s probably propped it up somewhere again—and the frame is just wide enough for Victor to see the top of Yuuri’s torso, including his arm, the one not pillowing his head. It’s visible almost to the elbow, and it’s bent in such a way that Victor knows exactly where his hand is.

Victor swallows and continues, just to see: “I think I’d touch your chest next. Right over your heart, so I can feel it beating.”

Sure enough, Yuuri’s hand comes up and presses itself against his chest. Right over his heart, just as Victor said. He smiles into the camera, a mischievous look playing across his face. “Like this?” he asks, and oh, how Victor loves it, _loves_ it, when Yuuri is bold.

“Just like that,” Victor replies breathlessly.

“Where else?” Yuuri insists. “Where else would you touch me?”

So Yuuri wants Victor to say it first, does he? Victor grins.

“Your face, perhaps. Your neck. You have such a lovely neck, Yuuri…”

“And then?” Impatience edges Yuuri’s voice.

Victor frowns, as if he’s deep in thought. “You know, I seem to have run out of ideas.”

“Victor—!”

“Perhaps you could suggest something?” He raises one eyebrow. “Perhaps you already have something in mind?”

Yuuri is blinking fast—but he recovers quickly. Visibly steeling himself, he says, “I… might.”

“Oh?”

“What if,” Yuuri says. “Um. What if I put my hand over yours and, and showed you? Showed you where to go?”

“Good,” Victor breathes. The heat in his stomach is radiating downwards, and he resists the urge to palm himself through his clothes. “And where is that?”

“Down,” Yuuri says—and slides his hand down his chest. Right out of the frame. “Down my chest, down my stomach. I’m, um, I’m still wearing my briefs, but your hand sneaks in underneath them and… and…”

“And I touch you,” Victor says simply.

Yuuri nods into his pillow. The visible half of his face is fiery red.

“Gently, at first,” Victor says. “I’d touch you gently. One finger, maybe two, to feel the length of you, and to see how you respond to me. We’ve not done this before, so I would take my time. I’d make sure you weren’t letting me do anything that made you uncomfortable. All right?”

Yuuri looks at him with an open, guileless expression that makes Victor’s heart ache. He knows, they both know, that they aren’t just talking about tonight.

“All right,” Yuuri says quietly.

“I’d explore you, and I’d tease you, and I’d wrap my hand around you—still gently, though—”

“Doesn’t have to be gentle,” Yuuri murmurs.

Victor blinks. “No?”

Yuuri turns his whole face to the camera once again, almost glaring. “I’m not fragile.”

“I know you aren’t. My love. I know.” Victor hopes that his voice conveys just how much he means it; Yuuri is one of the strongest people he’s ever met. “Tell me, then. How do you like it?”

“I… I don’t know?” Emotion after emotion flickers across Yuuri’s face, too quickly for Victor to catch them all. “Because it’s different when it’s someone else, right? Someone else… doing that? It’s only ever been me.”

Of course. Yes. Victor has long suspected as much, and he’s actually sort of relieved to hear it confirmed. Now he knows, just a little more clearly, what he’s working with.

“That’s fine, then. That’s something we can figure out together.” Victor grins. “Which sounds like a lot of fun, if you ask me.”

Yuuri gives him a shy smile that holds more relief than anything else. “Yeah,” he says.

So, then, no specifics tonight. Victor won’t go into detail, as it would only bring Yuuri out of the moment again. But he does want to finish this. This adventurous side of Yuuri has been rearing its head more and more often—exponentially so, since Victor kissed him on the ice in Beijing—and Victor wants to encourage it as much as he can.

“Am I still there with you?” Victor asks. At Yuuri’s confused look, he clarifies: “Am I still in bed with you? Is my hand still around you?”

Blush, blush, blush. But then, finally: “Yes.”

“Can I stroke you?” Victor asks.

Movement, right there, in Yuuri’s shoulder. A slow, rhythmic movement that can only mean one thing. And when Yuuri finally whispers, “Yes,” his voice is shallow and breathy.

“Beautiful,” Victor says. It’s true, too. The camera is close enough that he can see when Yuuri’s eyelashes flutter closed, then open again. He can see a sheen of sweat start to form on Yuuri’s temples. He watches the rhythm of that shoulder, absolutely fascinated. “Just beautiful, Yuuri.”

“I wish—Victor—I wish you were here—I—”

“So do I.” And then Victor has an idea. “Yuuri, can I see? If you moved the phone, just a little bit…”

Yuuri’s shoulder goes still. He worries at his lower lip with his teeth. After a moment, “I think… not tonight? If that’s okay? Sorry, it’s just…”

“It’s fine.” Victor isn’t even disappointed. It was just an idea—and anyway, this way he gets to watch Yuuri’s face. “Will you still come for me, though?”

Yuuri’s body clenches at the question. His shoulder begins to move again, and his eyes are still fixed on Victor.

“Pretend I’m there with you,” Victor says. “Pretend it’s my hand, or pretend it’s your own hand and you’re just showing me what you like. Pretend I’m kissing you—”

A moan, low and obscene, escapes Yuuri’s lips, and the sound slides straight down Victor’s spine, pooling at the base.

“Or just pretend I’m watching over you.” Victor sees Yuuri’s face begins to contort, the nuances of his pleasure etched in the line of his mouth, the color in his cheeks, the sheen at his hairline. “I’m watching over you, and you know that there’s nothing in the world I want more than to see you come for me.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Yuuri says, a laugh underscoring the words. Victor doesn’t know what that means, but he definitely likes the sound of it. Yuuri is starting to lose himself to pleasure, and Victor’s whole body is taut with anticipation.

“My Yuuri,” he murmurs. “My love. My beautiful love.”

Yuuri doesn’t even seem to hear him anymore, but Victor keeps going anyway, speaking in English and Russian both, keeping Yuuri company with the sound of his voice.

Then, all at once, Yuuri’s face goes slack. He lets out a breathy moan from somewhere deep in his throat, and Victor watches in awe as the muscles of his shoulder and biceps convulse. Something washes over him, making him squeeze his eyes shut and crinkle his nose, and who knew that Victor had a thing for men who shut their eyes and crinkled their noses when they came?

Victor certainly didn’t. Not before now. But there it is.

Yuuri goes boneless before long, his body practically melting into the mattress. It’s a little while before he opens his eyes again.

When he does, Victor says, “Hello.”

Yuuri laughs; it’s a giddy, wild sound, and it lands squarely in Victor’s chest. Finally, he replies, “Hi.”

“Do you feel any better?”

The redness is starting to fade from Yuuri’s face, but his orgasm has left his eyes gleaming. “Mm. Yes. I still wish you were here, though.”

“Me too,” he says, heart heavy.

He knows Yuuri isn’t accusing him of anything. He was, after all, the one to insist Victor go be with Makkachin—and after that, he was the one texting, at least once an hour, to ask for updates. When Victor reported that Makkachin was going to be fine, Yuuri sent a string of celebratory emoji: five flamenco dancers, six thumbs-ups, a pair of rainbows, hearts in every color, and, inexplicably, an avocado.

“You know,” Yuuri says, “I tried to change my flight. I wanted to fly out tonight so I could see you sooner. There wasn’t anything available, though.”

The suggestion, the mere _idea_ , of seeing Yuuri sooner squeezes Victor’s heart into a fist. He breathes through it. He makes himself smile. “Well, then we wouldn’t be having this very illuminating video chat, would we?”

“Guess not,” Yuuri replies. His eyelids are starting to droop, and his voice is blurry when he adds, “But we could’ve done it all in person instead.”

“We still could,” Victor says, cool as anything. He hopes.

“I’d like that.”

“Yuuri,” Victor says, remembering. “What did you mean before? When you said I had no idea?”

But Yuuri’s eyes are closed now, his face gone slack with sleep. He murmurs something in Japanese, and his breathing begins to even out, and Victor wishes that he could be there to clean Yuuri up, to cover him and tuck him in, to kiss that spot on his forehead that’s still a little bit shiny with sweat.

He wonders if Yuuri remembered to plug his phone in. Likely not.

And so, as tempted as he is to watch Yuuri sleep until the battery dies, he gives it only a few more minutes, then ends the call. Rolls onto his back. Stares at the ceiling and misses Yuuri like another person might miss an arm, or a lung.

He presses one hand into his chest and the other into his belly, trying to… he doesn’t know, really. Trying to contain what he feels? Squeeze it into something nameable, or manageable? He can, usually. Tonight, though, he feels himself suspended inside the distance between Moscow and Hasetsu, inside the not-quite-real hours between night and morning; time stretches infinitely outward, and this thing inside his chest is trying to do the same thing. To expand beyond the limits of his skin, to explode like a supernova, to swallow everything in its path.

It’s terrifying, feeling this much all at once. In a good way, though. He thinks.

Somewhere at the periphery of his consciousness, Victor knows that he’s still half hard. Watching Yuuri bring himself off, even without all the visuals available to him, was more than enough to send all the blood in Victor’s body straight to his cock. And if this were any other night, and if he were in any other room, he’d have the problem taken care of in five minutes. Probably less.

But tonight, surrounded by Yuuri’s smell and Yuuri’s possessions and twenty-three years of Yuuri’s memories, he can’t bring himself to do it. Maybe it’s because missing Yuuri sits so much heavier inside him than the simple, stupid need to get off. Maybe it’s because he wants to call Yuuri back and say, “Me next,” even though he knows he can’t.

Maybe he knows that his own hand will just make him feel lonelier.

So Victor flips over on the mattress and buries his face in Yuuri’s pillow. His erection begins to fade eventually, and sleep descends on him once again—and he promises himself, just before he drifts off, that the next time he comes, it will be for Yuuri.


	2. it's not enough to stay surrounded

“Let me get that for you,” says Victor, and heaves Yuuri’s suitcase onto the train car’s overhead rack before he can protest.

The need to say _I can take care of myself_ , or something similar, is etched clearly into the frown lines on Yuuri’s brow—but he’s too tired to protest. Which is more than fair. Considering Yuuri’s spent the last twenty-six hours in transit, Victor is kind of amazed that he’s still standing up at all.

Victor directs Makkachin into the window seat; he goes easily and busies himself looking out at the platform. Victor settles in beside him and opens his arms to invite Yuuri to follow. Yuuri slides right in, his body slotting itself against Victor’s side like that’s exactly where it belongs. Which, of course, it is. The only thing that could possibly make this better is if there weren’t two coats and a thousand layers of clothing between them.

But this is public transportation. There is a man with two tiny kids a few seats in front of them. Directly behind them, a teenaged boy is playing cheerful pop music so loudly that it bleeds out of his headphones. Across the aisle, two women are peering at a phone and laughing quietly to each other. Even Victor has enough modesty to stay clothed in a place like this.

“You can take a nap, if you want,” Victor offers, squeezing Yuuri’s shoulders with his arm. “I make a very good pillow.”

Yuuri gives him a small smile, but shakes his head. “The train ride isn’t very long. And besides, I’m too…” He trails off, giving a gesture with one hand that could mean just about anything. Or a little bit of everything.

“Me too,” Victor says softly.

Because, the more Victor thinks about it, the more he realizes that their conversation in the airport has shaken him. Not because of Yuuri’s request: _Please be my coach until I retire._ Not because of how easily his own response slipped out: _I hope you never retire._

No, what shakes him is how _right_ the whole thing feels. Being Yuuri’s coach until his retirement means, effectively, that Victor’s own competitive career is over. There is probably a part of him, somewhere small and dark and hidden, that feels sad about this—but mostly he feels peaceful. Relieved, even. He feels like he’s exactly where he’s supposed to be. He is needed. He has _purpose._

Victor puts his left hand on Yuuri’s right leg, palm open—and, in silent reply, Yuuri gives his own hand, fingers lace through Victor’s, clutching hard. Victor clutches back.

Makkachin’s tail thumps against Victor’s right thigh as the train starts moving, and Victor sets his free hand to work, scratching idly at Makkachin’s favorite spot, just below his shoulders. Victor is surrounded, hemmed in by the two creatures he loves most in the world. It’s a good feeling.

“Did you sleep on either of the flights?” Victor asks.

“A little,” Yuuri says. “Not much. It’s stupid. Usually I’m a pro at sleeping on planes.”

“Well, we’ll put you right to bed when we get back to Yu-topia,” Victor says.

Yuuri opens his mouth. Closes it again. Then opens it again and says, “Sure.”

But that’s clearly not what he wanted to say. So Victor waits patiently, running his thumb over Yuuri’s knuckles, a soft reminder of his presence while Yuuri figures out how to say… whatever it is.

Finally, Yuuri settles on: “I was too busy thinking.”

“About what?”

“The other night.” Yuuri tightens his grip on Victor’s hand; his cheeks have started to go pink. He looks firmly down at his lap. “On the phone.”

Victor brings their joined hands to his lips, pressing a firm kiss to Yuuri’s knuckles. This gets Yuuri to look at him again, which is when he says, “You mean the best phone call of my entire life?”

Yuuri blinks fast. He reaches up and adjusts his glasses, which do not need adjusting. “Well, _that_ can’t be true,” he says with a little laugh.

“It is,” Victor insists. He chooses his next words carefully, mindful of both their fellow passengers and the fact that Yuuri is already embarrassed enough as it is. “It was a lovely gift of a phone call, Yuuri. Thank you for showing me that part of yourself.”

“That’s just it, though. I didn’t _show_ you—” Yuuri cuts himself off, eyes darting frantically around the train car. Nobody is looking at them, but he still lowers his voice. “I didn’t show you anything you… you know… wanted to see.”

Victor frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, when you asked me to move the camera.”

Oh, right. Victor remembers that moment. As Yuuri brought himself off with his hand over video chat the other night, with Victor talking him through it, Victor asked Yuuri to adjust the camera so he could see Yuuri’s cock as he came. Yuuri said no. And that was just fine; Victor accepted the _no_ without a second thought.

Victor gives him a smile. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Yes, it is!” Yuuri says, frustration furrowing the skin between his brows. “You wanted to see—you wanted—”

“What I wanted to see was anything you wanted to show me,” Victor says. “And that’s what I got.”

“That’s not the problem,” Yuuri says.

“Then what is?”

“It’s just… ugh, no, it’s stupid.”

“Tell me anyway.”

It takes Yuuri a few seconds, but finally he says, “When you asked me that? I wanted to say yes. I really wanted to. But I just… I couldn’t. There’s no reason for it. I just couldn’t.”

Victor is pretty sure he knows the reason; it isn’t as though Yuuri’s anxiety begins and ends with his skating, after all.

“You weren’t comfortable with it. That’s _fine_ , Yuuri. And besides, if you really do want to show me, there’ll be plenty more chances.” He shoots Yuuri a sly, suggestive look. But it doesn’t seem to make Yuuri feel any better. So Victor waits again, thumb gliding over Yuuri’s knuckles, for Yuuri to find the words.

“It’s just that you’re… you,” says Yuuri. “You’re, I don’t know, _worldly_. You’re _experienced_. And I’m just some kid who can’t even make himself adjust a stupid camera for one stupid thing.”

Oh, where to begin?

“First of all,” Victor begins firmly, “you aren’t just some kid. You’re my Yuuri. Second of all—do you really think I’m disappointed with how things happened the other night?”

Yuuri doesn’t answer in words, but Victor can see the _yes_ lingering in his eyes.

“Even if I were as experienced as you seem to think—and I guarantee you that I’m not—I still wouldn’t be disappointed.”

“You’re not?” Yuuri is frowning now, confused, and Victor can’t really blame him. After all, Victor has spent the better part of his career making sure that he comes across exactly as Yuuri described him: worldly and experienced.

Or, to use Yakov’s phrase: _distant but desirable._

 _Distant_ was easy to achieve. The color of Victor’s hair, especially back when he kept it long, has always given him a slight air of otherworldliness—he’s long been aware of that much. And his features, almost girlishly delicate, don’t hurt either.

 _Desirable_ , though—that’s changed with time, out of necessity. When he was young, he was Boy With Dog: the boy every child wanted to befriend and every adult wanted to adopt. When his body began to change, he was Boy Next Door: the boy every teenager would date and every parent would approve of. Now that he’s grown? He’s the man you might find at a club on a Saturday night. The man who might ask you to dance, who might wink at you and kiss your hand and buy you a drink. The man who might, if you play your cards right, ask you to come home with him, even if only for a single night.

It’s a carefully constructed image, tweaked and refined and reinvented as often as necessary, and Victor likes to think that it comes from a place of truth. He knows that it probably doesn’t. He’s never had much of a chance to find out.

“Well,” Victor says, “it depends on how you define experience.”

Yuuri gives him a defiant look. “I told you the other night. Nobody’s ever even—you know”—he lowers his voice to a whisper again—“touched me. Like that.”

Victor presses their still-joined hands against Yuuri’s thigh. Just a little reminder of how close they are. “What about kissing? Had you ever kissed anyone before me?” Even as the question slips out, Victor curses himself for not asking it sooner. If Beijing was Yuuri’s very first kiss and Victor didn’t even _know_ …

“Yes,” says Yuuri softly, and Victor lets out a quiet sigh of relief. “Not anyone I loved, though. So it’s not the same.”

Victor smiles, then leans down so he can whisper directly into Yuuri’s ear: “I’ve had more one-night stands than I can count, Yuuri. And a couple friendships that turned intimate when alcohol was added to the mix. But I’ve never had sex with anyone I loved. And, do you know what? That’s not the same, either.”

Yuuri draws his head back, blinking in amazement. “You’ve never…? But—but you’re…”

“I’m what?”

“You’re _Victor Nikiforov_.”

“So I’ve been told,” Victor replies.

Yuuri squeezes Victor’s hand, determination hardening his features. Determination to do _what_ , Victor doesn’t yet know. But he does know that look. It’s the look Yuuri gets when he’s about to step out onto the ice. When he’s about to push the boundaries of his own confidence.

Finally, Yuuri asks, “Do you think it’ll be different for you? With me, I mean?”

Victor understands the meaning behind the question. _Do you love me?_ That’s what Yuuri is really asking.

“Yes,” he says softly. “I absolutely do.”

Yuuri closes his eyes and lets out a long breath.

“To tell you the truth,” Victor adds, “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that phone call, either.” Yuuri squeezes his hand again, and Victor decides to take it as his cue to keep going. “I loved watching your face. I honestly did.”

Yuuri smiles: a tiny thing that makes him duck his head. He’s going pink again.

Then Victor remembers: “You said something, though. You said I had no idea.”

“I did?” says Yuuri, suddenly cagey.

“Mmhmm. When I said to imagine me there, watching you… What do I have no idea about?”

“Oh. Yeah. No, um. No, that was nothing.”

“Well, _that_ was convincing,” Victor says with a laugh.

Yuuri glares at him.

Victor raises his eyebrows.

Yuuri says, “Later.”

“Oh, come on,” says Victor. “Just tell me.”

“Wait till later, and I can show you instead of telling you,” Yuuri says, and then yawns hugely. “How’s that?”

Well, this is intriguing. Victor nods. And Yuuri, apparently satisfied, scoots just a little bit closer and leans into Victor. Rests his head on Victor’s shoulder and lets himself melt, just a little.

“Almost there,” says Victor, and bends his head to plant a kiss in Yuuri’s hair. He unlaces their hands so he can sling his arm around Yuuri’s shoulders again, pulling him closer, wrapping him up like a secret.

Yuuri sleeps. Victor lets him.

-

Nishigori Takeshi is waiting for them at the train station, his car cleaned out to make room for Yuuri’s luggage, Yuuri himself, Victor, and Makkachin, who wastes no time at all in claiming the front seat. This is fine with Victor, since Yuuri’s exhaustion seems to be catching up to him; as soon as they’re all settled, Yuuri slumps against Victor, head pillowed against shoulder, just like before.

Within seconds, he’s asleep again. Audibly so.

Takeshi catches Victor’s eye in the rearview. “I didn’t know Yuuri snored.” His English is even more heavily-accented than Yuuri’s, but Victor can understand him easily.

“I knew,” Victor replies with a smile.

“I guess you would,” Takeshi says.

Yuuri snores on, quietly, as the road rumbles beneath them. This obvious evidence of his sleeping is probably why Takeshi continues: “He’s looked up to you his whole life. You know that, right?”

“Yes,” Victor says.

 _He’s been head over heels in love with you since before he even understood what love was._ That’s what Mari said the other night, as she helped him tend to Makkachin. Victor supposes Takeshi is saying the same thing, in his own way.

“We all have, honestly,” Takeshi says, taking a quick right, bringing them closer and closer to Yu-topia. “My wife, my girls. Even me. But Yuuri is part of our family, and family comes first. We’re there for him no matter what. Understand?”

Mari’s version was: _If you break my little brother’s heart, I will personally remove your eyeballs from your skull and serve them to you over rice._ It was specific enough that Victor suspected she had help with the translation. But it certainly got her point across.

Takeshi’s words are far milder, but his point comes across, too.

“I understand,” Victor says simply, and hugs Yuuri close.

Yuuri stirs against Victor’s side. “Are you talking about me?” he murmurs, his voice warm and lazy. “Stop talking about me.”

“Shh, my love, go back to sleep,” says Victor, and smooths Yuuri’s hair with one hand. “You’re almost home.”

“I’m home _here_ ,” Yuuri mumbles, pressing himself against Victor. Then he’s snoring again.

Victor keeps stroking Yuuri’s hair. The car pulls to a stop at an intersection, and before Takeshi turns again, Victor catches him peering at them in the rearview. Takeshi smiles to himself and keeps driving.

-

The Katsuki family, plus a couple guests of the inn, are waiting when Victor brings Yuuri inside. Sleep-muddled and practically boneless, Yuuri somehow musters the energy to greet all of them, even to make a little bit of conversation. His mother offers him food; his father offers him a drink; one of the guests asks for his autograph. Mari, with a smile she rarely gives to anybody human, crouches and welcomes Makkachin with wide-open arms.

Victor hangs back and watches it all—and Takeshi, who came in behind them with Yuuri’s suitcase, is the one who says what Victor’s thinking: “How soon are you going to pry him away from all this and make him go to sleep?”

“I’ll give it five more minutes,” Victor says, crossing his arms over his chest as he watches Hiroko cup her son’s face with both hands. She says something in rapid Japanese; Victor can’t tell what it is, but it makes Yuuri smile. “He said he barely slept on his flights.”

Takeshi gives an exaggerated wince. “Poor guy.”

“Don’t worry,” says Victor, giving Takeshi his most sincere smile. “I’ll take care of him.”

Takeshi gives him a long look. Then a nod. He holds out his hand, and Victor shakes it. “See you boys at the rink tomorrow?”

“We’ll be there,” replies Victor. “Thanks for coming to get us.”

“My pleasure,” Takeshi says, and then he’s out the door. Probably to go back home to his family. Families everywhere. That’s what Victor thinks as he lingers near the door, alone. There are families everywhere.

His family has always been the people he skated with. They are an ever-changing, ever-evolving group of people, but Victor always adapts, always reinvents. Reinventing is what Victor is best at.

Now, though, he isn’t going to skate anymore. So what does that mean?

He sees Yuuri yawn from across the room, and he has no idea if five minutes have passed, but he doesn’t care. He may be Yuuri’s boyfriend now, but he was Yuuri’s coach first. A terrible coach, sure, but even terrible coaches know what to do with athletes who look like they’re about to fall asleep standing up.

“Yuuri,” he says, moving over to him and pressing a hand between his shoulder blades. “Bed.”

“Bed?” says Hiroko. “It’s only seven o’clock. Shouldn’t he stay up as late as he can? Try to adjust to the time?”

Yuuri answers before Victor can: “Bed.”

“Shower first, though,” Victor adds.

Yuuri gives him a scathing look. “That’s too much work. I’d fall over and die.”

“Just a quick rinse,” Victor says. “Trust me.”

This isn’t a new conversation. Victor, ever since he started traveling for competitions, has showered after every single flight that lasted over three hours. And ever since he flew to Hasetsu to become a coach, he’s insisted that Yuuri do the same. Just to wash the feeling of the airplane away. Just to make sleeping a little easier.

Mumbling something under his breath, Yuuri goes over to his suitcase and begins rolling it toward his room. Victor moves to follow him, but before he can, Hiroko insinuates herself into his path.

She doesn’t say anything. She just looks at Victor’s face, her eyes alight with the same warmth that Victor so often sees in Yuuri. It isn’t the first time she’s watched him like this, but it’s definitely the first time she’s been so blatant about it. Victor holds his breath. He waits.

Hiroko reaches up and puts her palm on Victor’s cheek. She smiles at him, and she still doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. Victor understands her just as well as he understood Takeshi earlier tonight, and Mari a few days ago. It’s a warning and a blessing at the same time.

Finally, she pulls her hand away, letting him go. And he does go: down the hall, past the bathroom where he can hear Yuuri showering, and straight to Yuuri’s room, with its comfortable bed and its strangely bare walls. He sits heavily on the bed, his cheek still warm from Yuuri’s mother’s touch.

He doesn’t hear the shower turn off; in fact, he startles when he hears Yuuri say, “You were right. I needed that.”

“I’m always right,” Victor replies, getting quickly to his feet. There’s Yuuri, hair wet, clothed in loose shorts and one of the T-shirts that he always sleeps in. “Here, just let me get rid of my things so you can go to bed…”

Most of Victor’s things are still in the guest room he’s been using since he first arrived, but on the floor near the bed are a few of his shirts, a comb, a travel-sized bottle of face wash, and a few other odds and ends that crept in here with him over the past few nights and never managed to leave.

“You don’t have to,” Yuuri says.

“Well, I’ll need them later,” says Victor.

“Not if…” Yuuri swallows. “I mean, you don’t _have_ to stay here. I know it’s a small bed, but. You could. If you wanted.”

Something blooms in Victor’s chest. He resists the urge to press his palm into it, to keep it from overwhelming him. “Do you want me to?”

“You’re probably not even tired.”

Yuuri’s right: Victor isn’t tired. Not even a little bit. But he can change that, if Yuuri wants him to. He will be whatever Yuuri wants him to be, tired included.

“That’s not what I asked,” Victor says, letting his lips curl into a teasing smile. “Do you want me to sleep here with you?”

Yuuri bites his lip. His cheeks flush. He nods. “My parents, though…”

“Your parents saw me kiss you on international television,” Victor says. “They’ve also seen my bedroom empty since I came back here. Trust me. They know.”

Yuuri’s blush deepens. He nods again and climbs into his bed, then scoots all the way over to the wall so Victor has room, too.

Victor, meanwhile, shuts the door and begins to shed his clothes. Everything but his underwear. He puts on a T-shirt. He usually sleeps naked, or close to naked, but he hasn’t for the past few nights. He tried on the first night, but something about sleeping naked in Yuuri’s bed, without Yuuri beside him or at least Yuuri’s explicit permission, felt unspeakably wrong. So: underwear and a T-shirt.

He slips in beside Yuuri and draws the covers over them both. Coaxes Yuuri onto his side and curls around him, Yuuri’s back warm against his front. He pillows his head on one folded arm, and puts the other arm around Yuuri, hugging him close. He kisses the back of Yuuri’s neck, which smells like soap and home.

“What about Makkachin?” Yuuri says. “Maybe we should leave the door open in case he wants to come in.”

Victor laughs into Yuuri’s skin. “He’s been sleeping with your sister, actually. First you, then her. I think he likes your family better than he likes me.” He’s joking. Well, mostly he’s joking.

“Well, you’re my family too,” Yuuri says, through a massive yawn. “So I guess that means he likes you just fine.”

Victor squeezes his eyes shut. His heart is too big, and his cheek is still warm. Still. And he can feel the rise and fall of Yuuri’s lungs in his chest, beckoning Victor’s breath to fall into the same gentle rhythm.

“I love you,” he tells Yuuri, in Russian.

“Hmm?” says Yuuri.

“Go to sleep,” Victor says, this time in English.

Eventually, Yuuri does. And as he lies awake, Victor is struck, kind of slowly but kind of all at once, by how _small_ Yuuri is. When he’s awake, the fact of his size is easily masked by how he’s nearly as tall as Victor, by the strength and power in every movement he makes on the ice, and by the depth of emotion that constantly radiates from him. But now, as Yuuri sleeps, Victor can feel the slightness of his build. He’s reminded that this body fits easily into a costume Victor wore more than a decade ago.

How can a body so small contain the enormity of Yuuri inside it?

Victor thinks about the conversation they had on the train. About Yuuri’s surprise when Victor told him he’s never loved anyone before. And then he starts thinking of all people he told Yuuri about: all the people he’s had sex with and not loved.

He can’t remember most of them. Some, he remembers names or faces, but not both. There was the gentleman from London whose kind eyes and midnight-black skin he’ll never forget, and whose name he might never have learned in the first place. There was Francisco from Sicily, whose face might have been dark or pale or fat or thin or anything in between, and who mistook eighteen-year-old Victor, at first glance, for a girl. At the time, this absolutely delighted him.

He remembers Masha’s name _and_ her face, but only because she worked at what used to be Victor’s favorite bar. And because, when she said, _No women? Not ever? Aren’t you even curious about what it’s like?_ —he found that he _was_ curious. And because she’s still the only woman Victor’s ever slept with. Sometimes he wonders where she is. If she follows his career at all. If she ever got curious about sleeping with women, too.

And he remembers Chris, of course, because Chris was a friend both before and after he was anything else. Chris enjoyed doing things like accusing Victor of being smug, then pinning him down and trying to kiss the smugness out of him. He liked to order Victor around, which was fine, since Victor liked being ordered around. He liked to fuck and be fucked, and he liked drinking too much and letting his hands wander, and he liked bragging about his other conquests where Victor could hear.

Victor genuinely enjoyed sleeping with Chris. He genuinely enjoyed sleeping with most of them, whether he remembers them or not. Even Masha, even though he really just isn’t attracted to women that way. Victor enjoys sex. It’s easy. It’s fun. It’s uncomplicated.

 _It’s not like you’re in love with me or anything, right?_ Chris said that, looming above Victor in his hotel bed, the first time they slept together. _And I’m not in love with you. It’s just fucking. We’ll be fine._

Chris was right. They weren’t in love, and everything was fine.

But it’s different this time. Victor is so in love with Yuuri that it sometimes hurts to breathe. He will never be fine again.


	3. i can almost believe that i'm almost enough

Something moves. The body beside him or the bed beneath him or, more likely, both. It shakes him awake—which means he must have been asleep.

“Sorry,” Yuuri whispers, and Victor feels a warm hand on his leg. “Go back to sleep. I just had to go to the kitchen.”

To the kitchen. A hand on his _leg_. What’s Yuuri doing all the way down there? Victor opens his eyes; Yuuri is sitting at the foot of the bed, silhouetted by moonlight.

“Kitchen?” Victor asks.

“I forgot to eat before, so I got a snack. Don’t worry, it wasn’t anything big.” Victor wasn’t worried, but he appreciates the reassurance. Yuuri goes on: “And when I got back, you were sprawled out all over, so… But it’s fine! I’m awake now. Kind of annoyingly awake, actually.”

Victor sits up enough to see Yuuri’s clock. It’s just after two in the morning.

“Your mother was right,” Victor says with a groan. “I should’ve made you stay up. Now your sleep schedule will be a mess. Some coach I am.”

“Yeah, you’re way too soft on me.” Yuuri’s tone teases, and his hand pats Victor’s calf, and there’s a dirty joke to be made, isn’t there? Something about too soft and too hard. Victor’s too asleep to think of it right now, which is no good.

He sits up, crossing his legs under the blankets. If Yuuri’s awake, he’ll be awake, too.

“We could go to the Ice Castle for a bit,” Victor says. “Have a midnight skate and then sleep late tomorrow.”

“Now you’re _really_ being too soft on me,” says Yuuri.

“Oh, make no mistake, I’d turn it into a grueling practice session,” Victor replies.

Yuuri, who can probably tell he doesn’t really mean it, says, “I’ll pass. And besides…”

The word lingers. There’s a note of promise hidden within it. Enough to wipe the remaining weariness out of Victor’s head.

“Besides?” Victor prompts.

Yuuri stands, running a hand quickly, self-consciously, through his sleep-mussed hair. “I said I was going to show you something.”

“Ah,” says Victor, looking up at him. “The thing I have no idea about.”

Yuuri nods, and his tongue darts out to swipe over his bottom lip. He’s nervous. “Yeah. I want to… yeah. You have to promise not to laugh at me, though.”

“Obviously I promise,” Victor says, perplexed.

“Okay,” Yuuri says again, then crouches on the floor and reaches under his bed. His hand emerges holding something long and thin, which he offers to Victor. Only when Victor is holding it does he realize what it is.

A collection of posters, rolled up together and tied with a rubber band.

For a fraction of a moment, Victor can’t imagine why a bunch of posters would make him laugh at Yuuri—but then, it makes sense. When Victor was growing up, the only posters he ever had were of his favorite skaters. And he knows who Yuuri’s favorite skater is.

It clicks now. Yuuri’s bare walls. His refusal to let Victor into his bedroom, those first few weeks of their training. His cheeks, glowing pink in the moonlight as he waits for Victor to unroll the rubber band.

Victor slides to the floor and sets the posters down. Eases the rubber band off, then begins unfurling them. There, on top, just as he suspected, is his own face.

“All of them,” says Yuuri quietly, still hovering above him. “They’re all you.”

Carefully as he can, Victor thumbs through them. Some are real posters: expensive, laminated. Some are cutouts from magazines, their edges slightly uneven. Some are printed on computer paper. Here’s Victor at twenty-four, Victor at sixteen, Victor at eighteen. Victor with long hair, Victor with short hair. Victor on the podium, Victor skating, Victor with Makkachin.

“I started collecting them when I was twelve.” Yuuri’s voice is practically shaking with nerves now. “Yuu-chan—Yuuko, I mean—she gave me my first one. We spent hours watching you, copying you, and I…”

Victor looks up as the sentence trails off. Above him stands Yuuri, trembling, running out of words, and Victor has the uncanny feeling that Yuuri’s being braver here, in this dark and quiet room, than he’s ever been on the ice.

“And you what?” Victor says softly.

There’s another moment of quiet, and then the rest of it comes spilling out of Yuuri, all at once. “I thought you were beautiful. I felt like I was falling in love with you, just from watching you skate. I know you probably hear that all the time, and I know it’s stupid, but—”

“It’s not stupid,” Victor says. He means it, too—or he’s pretty sure he does. On one hand, there’s something infinitely sweet about Yuuri loving him before even knowing him; on the other hand, there’s something slightly… un-sweet… about Yuuri not needing to know him before deciding to love him.

Not that that’s Yuuri’s fault, of course. The images in Yuuri’s collection were all carefully posed, carefully lit, carefully constructed to complement Victor’s performances. The whole _idea_ was to make strangers fall in love. He was _distant but desirable_ , over and over again.

Yuuri shrugs, and his shoulders hunch again. Victor can feel him shrinking into himself, and he absolutely can’t let that happen. He selects a poster—the one where his much-younger self is smiling at the camera, arms wrapped around Makkachin—and holds it up for Yuuri’s inspection. “Where was this? Which wall?”

Yuuri points to the blank stretch of wall above his desk, and Victor holds it up, picturing it there. Picturing a tiny pre-teen Yuuri sitting at the desk, gazing up at it.

Turning back to Yuuri, Victor says, “This, right here, was the best photo shoot I ever got to do.”

“Yeah?” Yuuri asks. “Why’s that?”

“Look who’s in the shot with me.” Victor points at Makkachin, which makes Yuuri smile. “This little heartbreaker seduced every single person on the set that day. By the end of it, the photographer’s assistant was sneaking him treats behind my back. My stylist kept threatening to kidnap him. And who could blame her, honestly?”

A laugh escapes Yuuri, and though he quickly covers his mouth with his hand, his eyes still shine with mirth.

Victor replaces the poster and selects another: the one where he’s in tight black pants and a loose white shirt, sitting stiffly with his hands on his knees. He was meant to look regal or something; instead, he mostly looks vaguely uncomfortable.

“How about this ridiculous thing?” he asks, holding the poster up. “Where was this?”

Yuuri’s eyes go wide, and he points to the empty space squarely above his bed. “I… you think it’s ridiculous?”

“Chris calls it my Constipated Pirate King look,” Victor says fondly, and goes for the next poster in the pile. Except: “Oh. You have two copies of it?”

“I, um, needed another one. For—for my dorm. In America.” Yuuri’s voice is wavering again now, a blush spreading across his cheeks like a sunset. “You really don’t like it?”

Victor considers the poster, trying to see it through the eyes of someone other than himself. As a fan. As Yuuri. He supposes there’s a certain extravagant appeal. If you squint.

“Well,” he says, “it was my first shoot after I cut my hair short. They wanted to make me look more mature, something like that. ‘Meet the new Victor Nikiforov!’ Somehow, this is what they ended up with. I still have no idea why.”

Yuuri frowns at the poster. “The shirt _is_ kind of…frilly.”

“That it is.” He looks down at the next poster in the pile: a close-up of the upper half of his body, mid-skate. He’s looking wistfully into the middle distance as he extends his arms upward and outward, like wings. “This one is more recent.”

Yuuri seems much calmer now, but he still hesitates before he nods.

“From two years ago, I think,” Victor adds.

“Habit,” says Yuuri. “Collecting them, I mean. I just… never stopped.”

“And where did this one go?” Victor asks.

“In my dorm room, next to the… the Constipated Pirate King one.” Victor laughs, and Yuuri smiles a little as he goes on: “It was a present from Phichit, actually.”

“So, your dorm room _and_ your bedroom at home,” Victor says, utterly charmed. “What else? Did you have a little one in your wallet?”

Yuuri’s blush somehow manages to grow even deeper. “I was obsessed with you, okay?”

“Was? Past tense?” Victor brings one hand dramatically to his chest, with a camera-ready expression to match. “You wound me.”

Yuuri buries his face in his hands. “You know what I mean. Like I said, it’s stupid. It’s _weird_ , especially with—with—”

“With what?”

“This!” says Yuuri. “You! And me! And, and _kissing_ , and that thing on the phone! Doesn’t it get weird when you think about me being obsessed with you when I was twelve?”

Yes. But also, no. Victor honestly isn’t sure which answer is truer. So he starts to gather the posters back into their roll, and sidesteps the question. “That’s what you were thinking about while we were on the phone? Being obsessed with me when you were twelve?”

Yuuri moans into his hands. Shakes his head. Victor smiles; he has to remind himself that he isn’t allowed to laugh.

“So what is it?” Victor says, putting the rubber band back into place. He sets the poster roll aside and stands again.

“It’s that I… I used to…” Yuuri peeks over his fingertips, meeting Victor’s eyes. Pauses, maybe checking for signs of laughter. Finding none, he says, “I used to fantasize about you.”

“Fantasize?” Victor probably shouldn’t be surprised. No, he _definitely_ shouldn’t be surprised. But, somehow, he is. “About me? You mean—?”

“Not when I was twelve,” Yuuri says quickly. “I was, uh, older. Than that. By a lot, when I started, um. So, see, the other night, when you said to imagine you were in the room, watching me… do… that? It’s just, I’ve had _a lot of experience_ imagining that. And, wow, I definitely just said that out loud, and I probably shouldn’t have, so if you want to pretend this is just a dream or something, I can—”

Victor surges forward, cutting Yuuri off with a kiss. Yuuri makes a muffled noise of surprise against his mouth, but Victor rests his hands on Yuuri’s waist and pulls him closer. His lips part, and he feels Yuuri’s part in turn. He nips at Yuuri’s bottom lip, and is rewarded with a tiny yelp as Yuuri pulls away.

Their bodies are flush together, their faces inches apart. Yuuri’s eyes are dark, and his hair casts enticing shadows over his forehead, and he says: “So you’re all right with it?”

Yuuri’s worried tone sets Victor laughing, despite himself. “Yuuri. I want to know every single _detail_ of those fantasies of yours.”

Yuuri’s eyes widen, and Victor can feel him start to tense up under his hands. He licks his lips and doesn’t reply. That’s fine. Victor can start.

Victor has _ideas_.

“Maybe it started like this,” he says softly, and captures Yuuri’s lips again. Slowly, under the guidance of Victor’s mouth, Yuuri begins to relax—and Victor begins to steer him backwards, gently, gently.

Victor sits Yuuri down on the edge of the bed, claiming one more kiss before he slides down to kneel on the floor in front of him. He places one hand on each of Yuuri’s bare knees. Slides them down to his calves. His feet, which are covered with a mismatched pair of socks.

“Or like this,” Victor adds. And then, “I wonder what else you imagined, hmm?”

Victor selects a foot—the left one—and slowly removes Yuuri’s sock. From above him comes a sharp intake of breath, but he just smiles to himself and keeps going.

It’s far from the first time Victor has seen this foot of Yuuri’s. The skin beneath is hardened with calluses, with bruises, with scars from long-healed cuts. The nails are cropped short, all except for the one on his smallest toe, which is missing altogether. Yuuri’s left foot is battered and strong, and Victor knows, better than most, what it is capable of.

Victor lifts it, pressing a kiss to the skin just below the bone of Yuuri’s ankle.

“Victor?” says Yuuri. The sound is more breath than word, and there’s a tremor in it.

Another kiss, this time gifted to the smallest toe. This time, Victor lets his tongue flick out and taste. Yuuri begins to tremble.

When Victor removes the other sock, he finds the same scars and bruises, arranged differently. The right foot has five toenails instead of four; a bandage holds the third and fourth toes together. Victor lifts this foot, in turn, and presses his lips to the bandage. To the heel. To the arch.

“Did you imagine this, too?” Victor asks, circling his thumb over Yuuri’s skin. “Did you imagine me seeing these feet gliding across the ice, and marveling at how beautifully they move, and deciding I must have them for my own?”

When Yuuri doesn’t reply, Victor looks up at his face, and finds Yuuri looking back. Emotion swirls in his eyes, and his teeth are clamped firmly down on his bottom lip.

Sliding his hand back up Yuuri’s leg, Victor says, “Maybe you imagined me watching the movement of your calves during your step sequences.” He caresses Yuuri’s calves, and then continues upward, closer and closer to the hem of the shorts he was sleeping in. “Or the movement of your thighs as you jumped.”

Yuuri’s breath hitches; Victor brings his hands up and tucks his fingers into the waistband of his shorts. “Maybe you imagined me watching as you raised your arms, revealing just a hint of your skin…”

One hand still in Yuuri’s waistband, Victor uses the other to lift Yuuri’s shirt. Just a little. Just enough that he can feel the warm flesh beneath. Yuuri makes a small, pitiful sound; a hand lands on Victor’s face, grasping blindly.

Victor catches Yuuri’s hand in his, and it becomes the next thing he kisses. Palm, thumb, each knuckle of each finger.

“Did you imagine me doing this, too?” he asks, and then takes the tip of Yuuri’s index finger into his mouth.

“Come up here,” is Yuuri’s reply.

Victor does as he’s told, climbing onto Yuuri’s bed—or rather, onto Yuuri’s lap. He straddles Yuuri’s thighs, and Yuuri holds him in place with strong arms.

Yuuri is still trembling.

He leans down and claims another kiss, and Yuuri sighs into it, blooming under Victor’s touch like a flower. Yuuri holds Victor’s back, and Victor holds Yuuri’s face, and Victor is melting, and Victor is in love, and it’s the middle of the night, and it’s only them and the moon outside, and Victor wants to know everything that Yuuri ever imagined about him.

No. Wait. No. Victor wants to know _anything_ Yuuri imagined about him. Because everything that just happened here? Those were just a handful of the million tiny ways Victor has imagined touching Yuuri—feet, legs, waist; bruises, bandages, strength—since they met at the Grand Prix banquet last year. They’re Victor’s fantasies. Not Yuuri’s.

He breaks the kiss, stroking Yuuri’s cheeks with his thumbs as he pulls away. “Tell me,” he says. “Tell me what you imagined us doing together.” And his eyes must be adjusting to the dim light, because he can see, very clearly, the nuances of the blush that colors Yuuri’s cheeks.

Yuuri breathes out, slowly. He is dazed, gazing up at Victor’s face. He looks like a man caught in a dream.

“I…”

Victor catches a lock of Yuuri’s hair and brushes it back, off his forehead.

Yuuri swallows. “Well, it wasn’t _together_ , really. Nothing like what you were thinking.” He gives Victor a tiny smile and a tinier laugh. “It’s kind of boring by comparison, actually. I just… I meant what I said before. I really just imagined you watching me.”

“Really?” Victor says, because he honestly doesn’t know what to think about that.

“Mmhmm,” says Yuuri, smiling, secretive. “You were here in my room with me, and you’d tell me how to… um. Touch myself.”

“I’ll bet I did,” Victor says. Yuuri ducks his head a little, which makes Victor laugh. He bends to kiss Yuuri’s forehead, asking, “Then what?”

“Well, and then I’d do it. You’d tell me to go faster or slower, or how much to get undressed first, or where else to touch, and if I…” He lets out a little huff, looking back up at Victor. “Are you sure you want to hear all this? It’s so dumb. It really is.”

“Tell me, tell me, tell me,” Victor says, bouncing a little in Yuuri’s lap.

Yuuri laughs. “Okay, um. Well, I always told myself that if I did everything _just right_ , just the way you said, then you’d… um… you’d come over to the bed and… you know. Kiss me.”

Something unwelcome twists in Victor’s gut. “Meaning… I wasn’t kissing you already?”

“Well, no?” Yuuri looks confused by the question.

“All right, so what would happen after I kissed you?”

Yuuri smiles again. “Well, probably you’d fall in love with me and we’d live happily ever after. I don’t know. I never really got that far.”

“You didn’t?”

“No, I couldn’t quite—I mean, I tried? But I couldn’t really imagine it, and anyway the kiss wasn’t the point. The watching was the point.”

Victor says, “You couldn’t imagine it?”

Yuuri shrugs, which is a little strange given that Victor is still sitting in his lap. “I mean, you were so… just… well, you know.”

Victor frowns. He doesn’t know.

“Untouchable,” Yuuri says. “Or something. Unreachable, maybe. You know? You were so… _you_ … and maybe I was trying to be logical or realistic or something, but I couldn’t imagine _you_ ever wanting to really kiss _me_.”

Distant but desirable. This again. This is what Victor has spent the better part of his life trying to be. Apparently, it worked. And he knows, he _knows_ what Yuuri’s describing isn’t logic or realism, but one more manifestation of his tendency to self-deprecate—and he knows it has nothing to do with Victor himself, and everything to do with Yuuri, but…

But. But something. Something’s niggling at Victor’s brain, like an itch just under his skin. He feels like he’s made of paper. A drawing, hastily scribbled, two-dimensional, and it isn’t Yuuri’s fault. It isn’t anyone’s fault, probably. But something about this is sitting very wrong inside him.

It’s not his own name that jars Victor back to the present—how many times did Yuuri say it, just now?—but the movement of the hands that are holding him. Yuuri is running his hands up Victor’s sides, holding his ribcage like he’s afraid Victor will fall over. His eyes are wide and worried, and he’s saying “Are you all right?”

Victor tries to bolt sideways, off Yuuri and off the bed, but Yuuri catches him and holds him in his lap. “Did I say something wrong?”

“Of course not,” he says, pulling out one of his well-practiced smiles. A sultry one. The one he usually punctuates with a wink.

Yuuri frowns, confused or suspicious. Hard to tell which. “I’m sorry. I thought you wanted me to tell you—”

“I did, I did, it’s only…”

Victor doesn’t finish his sentence. Neither does Yuuri. For a moment the room is quiet again, and Victor’s heart squeezes with the wrongness that he still doesn’t have the words to describe.

Yuuri reaches up and cups Victor’s cheek, and he looks kind, and sympathetic, and _no_. This isn’t how this is supposed to go. Yuuri’s the one who just endured a long flight after a performance he wasn’t proud of. Victor’s supposed to be comforting _him_ , not the other way around.

“Where were we?” Victor says, and tucks his finger under Yuuri’s chin, tipping his head up. He plants quick kisses all across Yuuri’s cheeks, his nose, his forehead—

“Hey, no, wait.” Yuuri wriggles beneath him, but Victor thinks _like hell am I about to wait_ and leans in to nip at Yuuri’s neck. That’s when Yuuri takes hold of him by the shoulders and pushes him away, almost right off the bed. “I said _wait_.”

Victor blinks. Swallows. Climbs to his feet. Yuuri looks angry at him.

“If I said something wrong, will you please just tell me?”

“You didn’t,” says Victor, and this much, at least, is true.

“Then what?” Yuuri demands. “What happened just now?”

Something about those posters. Something about Victor keeping his distance, even in Yuuri’s fantasies. Something about _I hope you never retire_ and Victor’s skating career being suddenly, quietly over, and something, maybe, about Yuuri being surprised that Victor’s never been in love before now.

_Something._

“Maybe I should make you some tea,” Victor says, and starts toward the door. “Maybe that would help you get back to sleep—”

That’s when Yuuri springs out of the bed, takes Victor by the shoulders, backs him into the nearest wall, and pins him there. His eyes are rich and brown and brimming with feeling. He says, through gritted teeth, “Tell me.”

But what is there to tell? He can’t pinpoint this thing he’s feeling. He could skate it, probably, but hell will freeze over before he figures out how to compress it into any kind of human language.

When he doesn’t answer right away, Yuuri’s eyes narrow and become searchlights, and suddenly Victor can hardly breathe. Which is stupid. He’s used to being scrutinized. Judges calculating his worth in numbers. Fans voting on whether or not he looks better with short hair. Tabloid reporters speculating about his sexuality and promiscuity. Even Yuuri, visibly trying not to stare at his cock in the hot spring during those first few weeks in Hasetsu, before they actually got to know each other. He’s famous. He’s attractive. He’s used to it.

This, though.

Finally, something shifts in Yuuri’s face. “They were only fantasies. They’re only posters. You know that, right?”

“Obviously,” Victor says, because that’s not what’s happening here. He’s not sure what _is_ happening here, but it’s not that.

“I didn’t know you back then,” Yuuri says. “I wanted to, but I didn’t, so I made you up. So don’t start thinking that’s the version of you that I want, okay?”

“Which version _do_ you want?” Victor asks.

“How many versions are there?” asks Yuuri, lips quirking upward into the beginnings of laughter. One of his hands is in Victor’s hair now, petting and teasing, and it sends a ripple of sensation down Victor’s spine. He wonders if Yuuri was one of the fans who preferred it long. He could grow it out again, perhaps, if Yuuri wants.

“As many as it takes to keep you,” Victor replies, and leans in for a kiss.

But instead of closing the gap between then, Yuuri steps back, looking kind of horrified. “As many as…? Victor, I’m not your _audience_.”

“Yuuri, my Yuuri, I didn’t mean it that way—”

“Is that really what you think?” Yuuri continues, as if Victor hasn’t spoken at all. “That you have to keep on, I don’t know, reinventing yourself? Or else, what? I’ll stop being interested in you?”

“No,” he says with a derisive laugh. “Of course not.”

“Then why did you say that?”

Why _did_ he say that?

“Because I…” He’s so close. There’s an answer on the tip of his tongue. There is. He can hear the music that underscores it, and he can feel his muscles tensing in the shape of the jump that expresses it, but words, though. Words are more difficult.

“Well,” Yuuri says, eyes still searching, searching, “if it helps, I can tell you. This is the version of you that I want. Right here. The version that’s real.”

The music swells. Victor jumps. It’s clean and it’s beautiful and it’s utterly emotionless and Victor says, “I’m not sure there _is_ a version that’s real.”

The music fades into a glorious end, and Victor’s finishing pose isn’t a pose at all, but a holding of breath as he watches Yuuri’s face change: confusion, annoyance, sympathy, maybe even anger.

“What,” Yuuri says carefully, “are you talking about?”

Excellent question!

A step sequence presents itself in his head, and it’s out of order, the middle following the end, but he tries to translate it: “I’m… invented, I think. I invented myself, and there are posters and fragrance ads and costumes and records and medals and podiums and interviews and none of it’s _real_ , it’s all acting, or pretense, or trying to maintain an _image_ , and—and of _course_ you thought I was untouchable. That’s what you were _supposed_ to think. That’s what _everyone_ was supposed to think, and I’m just…”

He’s run out of breath. He inhales, and it’s shaky. Yuuri is staring.

“I’m tired of it.” Victor’s voice comes out lower than usual. Quieter. “I don’t want to be untouchable anymore.”

Yuuri’s eyes widen with understanding. His hands finds Victor’s face, and he says, breathless, “You aren’t, though.”

“I am,” Victor says, lightheaded with the truth that he’s unearthed. “I am, I am, and I don’t know how to be anything else.”

Yuuri narrows his eyes. “Liar.”

This time, it’s Victor who’s left staring.

Yuuri huffs, impatient. “Beijing. Are you telling me that was acting? Maintaining an image?”

Victor’s chest tightens as he remembers the kiss. Their first. “No, of course not—but we’ve talked about this. It wasn’t like I didn’t know there were cameras, and—”

“I don’t mean when you kissed me,” Yuuri says sharply. “I’m talking about the night before the short program. Hot pot.”

Oh. That. “I’ve already said I’m sorry—”

“For what?” Yuuri says, cutting him off a second time. “Stripping in public? Throwing your underwear around? Making me drag you back to the hotel with my shirt around your waist because you refused to put your pants back on?”

Victor’s face is on fire. “I really am sorry. I had too much to drink, and—”

“No, you don’t get it,” Yuuri says, almost angrily. “ _That’s_ the Victor I love.”

“You… wait.” Victor blinks. He is probably hallucinating. “What?”

“I put you to bed, and you asked me to stay, so I did. You curled up around me until the sun came up, and your breath was terrible, and I barely slept, and it was the best night of my entire life.”

“I,” Victor says slowly, “am such a terrible coach.”

“Yeah,” Yuuri says. “Sometimes. And sometimes you’re an amazing coach. You’re whiny, and you’re petty, and you’ve made me cry over and over again, and you’ve inspired me more than anyone else in my entire life, and you’re definitely going to start balding pretty soon, and you’re loud and obnoxious and generous and kind, and my mother _adores_ you, and your dog is amazing, and you are the most ridiculous person I’ve ever met, and I don’t care if there’s one version of you or a thousand. I want all of them.”

Victor feels weightless. Dizzy. Drunk with Yuuri’s hands hot on his cheeks, with Yuuri’s words coiling in his ears. He grasps at Yuuri’s waist, pulling him close.

Yuuri kisses him, his tongue darting out to taste Victor’s bottom lip. “This version,” he whispers again. He kisses Victor’s jaw. “This one.” A row of kisses down Victor’s neck. “This one.” His mouth moves along Victor’s collarbone, till it comes up against the barrier of his shirt. “All of them,” he murmurs into Victor’s shoulder. “Whether you decide to reinvent yourself or stay exactly the same.” He looks up, eyes brimming. “Do you understand?”

Victor finds Yuuri’s hand and presses his face into it again. Kisses his palm. He has never in his life felt quite as warm as he does now, caught between Katsuki Yuuri and the bedroom wall.

“I understand that you’re far too good for me,” Victor says, slightly joking, mostly not. “What in the world did I do to deserve you?”

“Something terrible, probably,” Yuuri says, and pins Victor with another kiss.

Victor holds Yuuri close with one hand at the base of his skull, the other at the small of his back. Yuuri’s lips are soft and eager, and Victor feels himself growing hard; when Yuuri presses himself even closer, flush against Victor as if to crush him against the wall, he can feel that Yuuri is hard, too.

Hard and panting and pink-cheeked and so beautiful that it makes Victor’s throat ache.

Yuuri’s body shudders, his hips snapping once against Victor’s thigh, his fist curled into the fabric of Victor’s shirt. His face tucked into the hollow under Victor’s chin.

“Tell me what you want,” Victor says softly, bending to nip at Yuuri’s earlobe.

Yuuri mutters something that Victor doesn’t catch.

“Hm?”

Yuuri looks up. Swallows hard. His eyes are wild. “I don’t know. Everything. _You_. I just…”

“Everything might be a little much for tonight,” Victor says, smiling. “I’m not letting you out of practice in the morning just because you said nice things to me.”

Yuuri moans an incoherent reply, and his hips buck again. Victor slides his hand down from Yuuri’s back, cupping the curve of his ass.

“Let me take care of you,” he whispers. “Bed?”

Yuuri shakes his head frantically.

“All right, then here,” Victor says. “Do you want my hand on you? My mouth?”

He knows which answer he’ll get, because it’s the same one he always gets. _I don’t know, there’s just something appealing about the idea of Victor Nikiforov on his knees for me_. Chris said that, the first time they hooked up after a little too much to drink. Victor thought it was funny at the time—especially since Chris was mostly joking and entirely willing to reciprocate.

But Yuuri replies, “Hand. Please. I want… I… can you kiss me while you do it? Is that… is that stupid?”

Once again, language fails him. Because there are no words that can possibly express how _not stupid_ Yuuri’s request is.

So Victor leans down and kisses Yuuri hungrily, greedily. He braces his back against the wall, ready to support Yuuri’s weight as soon as it becomes necessary, and his hands go to work. They slip Yuuri’s pants down over his hips, along with his underwear, and Yuuri moans his approval into Victor’s mouth. When Victor finds Yuuri’s cock, Yuuri lets out a noise that’s almost a sob.

Yuuri might skate like he’s trying to coax everyone in the arena into an orgy, but Victor is just beginning to learn the extent of his inexperience off the ice. This is the first time anyone’s ever touched Yuuri this way—and, to Victor, the weight of that responsibility is a precious one.

Lips moving with Yuuri’s all the while, Victor strokes the length of Yuuri’s cock, teasing the underside, sliding the foreskin back and forth over the head, paying close attention to Yuuri’s responses. Sussing out what he likes, what he loves, what might be too much, until finally, they fall into a rhythm. Victor’s hand and Yuuri’s hips, a quiet symphony.

“Amazing,” Victor says, pressing the word into Yuuri’s mouth.

Yuuri’s kisses grow deeper, sloppier, and his hands are all over the place. Braced against the wall one second, then stroking Victor’s face and hair, then clutching at his shirt. His body undulates against Victor’s, and he begins to shiver, to shake and, no, Victor _can’t_ support him if his legs give out. He just doesn’t have enough hands for that.

Fast as he can, Victor turns them so it’s Yuuri pinned against the wall instead of him. Yuuri doesn’t even seem surprised by it—just braces himself and pulls Victor down for more kisses, more tugs at his hair, more, more, more. Then his body goes taut, and he says, “Oh,” and he pulls back and presses the back of his head to the wall, and he says, “V-Victor,” and his eyes are squeezed shut with the effort of holding back, and he says, “I’m about to—you should—your clothes—”

Victor doesn’t give a single shit about his clothes. He stays exactly where he is, and he says, “Yuuri, open your eyes. Look at me.”

Yuuri does. He looks. But only for a second, before he tenses up and squeezes them shut again. He crinkles his nose, and he erupts, and Victor gets to feel the pulse of it in his very own hand. He gets to see the tiny ways that Yuuri’s body jerks and writhes. He gets to hear the soft, panting breaths that aren’t words, but almost, almost.

They’re so small, these things, but they add up to something so much larger. There are galaxies being born inside this moment. Victor will remember this for the rest of his life.

When he is spent, Yuuri slumps into Victor, pressing his head against Victor’s shoulder and muttering words in Japanese that Victor doesn’t know. His breath is still coming fast enough to rock them both, and Victor holds him until he starts to calm down again.

“That was… I, I can’t… I need to…” Yuuri tries to straighten, making a vague gesture that might mean _sit down_. So, once again, Victor steers him back toward the bed and sits him down, then looks around for a tissue or a towel, something to clean up the mess. Not seeing anything useful, he takes his T-shirt off and uses that instead. Wipes his hand down, then kneels at Yuuri’s feet and starts wiping him down, too.

Yuuri flinches a little—still sensitive, probably—and Victor tries to be gentler. “Sorry,” he says, and runs the shirt’s sleeve over Yuuri’s cock, his thighs, the lower part of his stomach. When he’s done, he tosses it aside for washing tomorrow, and he kisses one of Yuuri’s knees. Looks up. “Did you like that?”

Yuuri wriggles his pants up over his hips again, hissing a little at the slide of fabric over his cock. Victor kisses the other knee. He is still hard, almost to the point of pain, but he can ignore that for now. Getting off is not Victor’s priority; Yuuri is.

“I…” Yuuri trails off, blinking, his hands hovering in the air like they might know, better than his tongue knows, how to express what he’s thinking. Finally, he settles on a quiet, “Yes?”

Except it sounds like it wants to be a _no_.

“You… don’t seem sure,” Victor says.

“No, no, it was good,” says Yuuri, too quickly. “There’s just…” He takes a breath, visibly steadying himself, and goes quiet. Victor can practically _see_ the doubts starting to creep in, shadowing Yuuri’s thoughts.

“There’s just what?” Victor asks, and Yuuri squeezes his eyes shut, shoulders hunching, breath hitching. Victor runs his hands up the sides of Yuuri’s legs, clutching tight, trying to be enough of a force to anchor Yuuri to the room. To the space outside his own head. “Whatever it is, you can say it. You’re safe with me.”

Yuuri sniffs, pressing his palms into his eyes. “I know—I—”

Victor waits. He holds Yuuri’s legs, and he rests his chin on Yuuri’s knee, and he watches and waits.

Finally, Yuuri says, “I tried to keep my eyes open, like you wanted. I tried.”

“Yuuri, love, no.” Victor presses another kiss to Yuuri’s knee. “Don’t worry about that.”

“But you wanted—and I couldn’t—and—and—”

Victor squeezes Yuuri’s calves, waiting for him to gather his thoughts.

“There’s so much…” Yuuri takes a deep, shaking breath. Steadies himself with one hand on the bed. “I wanted to show you how much I feel for you. I wanted—but—but it was over so fast, and I thought we… I thought, when you love somebody, it’s more… no, god, no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m being stupid again.”

“Will you stop saying that?” Victor says. “You aren’t stupid.”

“But—”

“You’re allowed to feel what you feel. Why do you keep trying to run away from that?”

That’s when Yuuri opens his eyes again. “Why do _you_ run away from what _you_ feel?”

Victor frowns. He doesn’t—

Oh, but he does. He _did_. Just a few minutes ago.

“That was different,” he says.

“I don’t think it was,” replies Yuuri, his tone taking on an edge of certainty that makes Victor sit up a little straighter.

“I was trying not to ruin the moment,” Victor explains. “Even though I clearly failed.”

“No, you were… That was… You’re safe with me, too, okay? You don’t have to spend every second taking care of me and my stupid feelings—”

“Yuuri.”

“I know, I know, they’re not stupid, whatever.” Yuuri runs a hand through his hair, clearly frustrated, and then he blows out a sigh. Meets Victor’s eyes again. “I _like_ it when you take care of me. I like it more than I can ever—I _love_ it. But you can’t tell me to be honest about what I’m feeling when you won’t do the same thing. I want… I want to take care of you, too.” He swallows hard. “If you’ll let me.”

And just like that, Victor can’t look at him anymore. He buries his face in Yuuri’s thigh, breathing hard. He thinks he probably isn’t going to cry—he’s never been much of a crier—but he’s also far too overwhelmed to do anything else.

A hand lands in his hair, tentative at first, then more sure. At first it just sits there, a small, warm weight upon him. Then it begins to stroke. Just softly. Just lightly. Just the tiniest gesture that, for a moment, becomes the center of Victor’s entire universe.

After a long moment, Yuuri says, “Can I ask you something?”

“Mm,” Victor says.

“What do _you_ fantasize about?”

Oh.

It’s a question Victor’s been asked before. Several times, in fact. He never knows how to answer it, and he usually ends up saying something about using a mirror, or something about handcuffs. Things that sound like they could be _someone’s_ fantasy, even if they aren’t _his_.

But this is Yuuri. And Yuuri wants honesty.

He looks up. Yuuri is waiting for him, quiet and patient, hand still carding gently though his hair.

“This,” he says.

Yuuri laughs nervously. “No, but really.”

“Really, it’s this,” says Victor, pausing to kiss Yuuri’s skin, just below where his shorts end. “Being here, with you, in the middle of the night. Just… this.”

That’s when Yuuri’s hand curls into a fist, taking hold of Victor’s hair, pulling his head upward so that he’s looking at Yuuri again. It’s not rough, and it doesn’t hurt. It’s just… surprising. Very, very surprising. Yuuri’s voice is softer than ever when he says, “I mean _real_ fantasies.”

Victor stares. Desire zings through him again like lightning; his cock, nearly forgotten over the past few minutes, springs back to life.

Then, Yuuri realizes what he just did. “Oh!” he says, pulling his hand away. “No, no, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to do that, please, I’m so—”

“Do it again,” Victor says. His fingertips clutch at Yuuri’s calves, tighter than ever.

Yuuri says, very carefully, “What?”

Victor’s answer has changed. This is his fantasy, now: Yuuri pulling at his hair, telling his head what to do. And he tries to find the words to explain this to Yuuri, but in the rush of heat flowing through his body, the only words that come out are, “I said do it _again_.”

There’s a flash—just a fraction of a moment—where Yuuri looks as young and lost and terrified as when Victor first met him. Well. Not when Victor _first_ met him, maybe, but the first time they met _properly_. Hot springs and tea, instead of pole dancing and champagne. This Yuuri looks like that one. The same one who balked when Victor tried to explain what _eros_ meant.

But then, slowly, his hand reaches out again. Fingers winding into the hair at the back of Victor’s head, then curling into a fist. Victor sucks in a breath at the pressure on his scalp—at the lightness that it brings. Yuuri begins to draw him upward, and Victor flows with the motion of Yuuri’s hand. He’s a puppet on a string, rising and rising until his lips are inches away from Yuuri’s.

“Yes?” Yuuri asks, just before kissing him.

“Yes,” Victor replies, and lets himself melt. He’s a puddle in Yuuri’s lap now, anchored to human form only by the heat of Yuuri’s lips, mouth, tongue. And by the heat between his own legs, pulsing with a desire that hasn’t been allowed a release in _days_.

He braces his forearms on Yuuri’s thighs, curling around him, into him, as much as he can. Touch. He wants touch. He _needs_ touch, and if his hands creep over to Yuuri’s waistband and pulls it down, just a little, just enough, who can really blame him? Yuuri may not even be able to go again, but Victor can’t resist. Fingers aren’t enough. He breaks the kiss and dips his head down, because he needs to _taste_ —

But Yuuri pulls him up before he can get there, and then somehow Victor is on the bed, on his back, and Yuuri is arching over him, fixing him with a stern look. “It’s _your_ turn.”

He plants a quick kiss on Victor’s mouth, then peels his shirt off, then his shorts and his underwear—and there it is again. That look. That slightly terrified _what did I just do_ look, flashing across his face for a split second before it’s replaced with sheer determination. Then he goes for Victor’s briefs and makes quick work of them, too. And here they are. Victor spread out on this little bed, feet braced against the mattress, Katsuki Yuuri between his knees.

His answer changes again. His new fantasy is this, now. It’s Yuuri, his chest flushed pink, his cock hanging spent and small between his legs, his eyes fixed on Victor with indescribable hunger. It’s Yuuri, running his hands up Victor’s thighs, then bending to follow the trail with his mouth—a trail that ends with a quick swipe of Yuuri’s tongue up the underside of his cock.

Victor swears, clutching at the sheets, and Yuuri looks up at him, shy again. “Good?” he asks.

“Good, yes, definitely good,” replies Victor.

“Just tell me if I’m being too much,” Yuuri whispers. “You’ll tell me, right?”

Too much _what_? Victor opens his mouth to ask—but then.

He understands.

He understands why Yuuri wouldn’t keep his eyes open. Why he wouldn’t move the camera the other night. Why his fantasies weren’t about _doing_ anything in particular, but about being. Being observed. No. More than that. Being desirable.

Yuuri fantasizes about being desirable because he thinks that he isn’t. He worries about being too much. Too imperfect. Too human. Too real.

And meanwhile, here’s Victor, worried that all his own realness has bled out over years of performances and interviews and trying too hard to be, well, _himself_.

Before he even realizes it’s about to happen, Victor bursts out laughing.

“What?” Yuuri asks, looking suddenly terrified.

“Oh, Yuuri,” Victor says. “What a pair we are.”

“What do you…”

“You’re not too much. You couldn’t ever be.”

“But if I—”

“Nope.”

Yuuri frowns. “But if I do something you don’t like.”

“Yuuri.” Victor wriggles his hips, just a little. Just enough to draw Yuuri’s gaze down to Victor’s swollen cock—a clear indication of exactly how much Victor is enjoying this. “You could tie me to your bed, use me as a dinner table, make me lick your skates clean for you, and not let me come for a week, and it still wouldn’t be too much.”

Something warm and dark flashes behind Yuuri’s eyes. The same something, Victor thinks, that he saw on the ice when Yuuri grabbed him by the tie in Moscow. But it’s gone in an instant, replaced by a hunching of shoulders and a nervous laugh and Yuuri saying something that Victor doesn’t actually hear because suddenly his entire focus is on Yuuri’s hand, which is _swatting the inside of his thigh_.

Victor bucks and lets out a shout at the sharp sting of it—and Yuuri recoils.

The thing is, Victor knows it wasn’t an intentional slap. Or spank. Or whatever. It was Yuuri swatting at him the way he might swat at Victor’s shoulder after Victor says something inane or ridiculous or just plain stupid. But.

Still.

“I’m adding _that_ to the ‘not too much’ list,” Victor says. “Please, _please_ feel free to do that again.”

Yuuri blinks. And that little _something_ begins to creep back into his expression. “You mean this?” he says, and slaps the inside of Victor’s thigh again.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Victor says, as his whole body convulses.

Yuuri looks _fascinated_.

He slaps harder. Then harder again. His hand starts to move, striking skin that’s ever closer to Victor’s cock, and each time Victor moans, or swears, or just shouts, until finally Yuuri says, “You really have to be quieter. My parents’ room isn’t far away.”

Victor moans into clenched teeth. He’s not, historically speaking, good at being quiet. But he nods. He’ll try.

But when Yuuri swats at his balls instead of his thigh, the effort of not shouting is _so much_ that he nearly sees stars. Teeth clamped firmly over his bottom lip, Victor arches his back and waits for the sting of Yuuri’s hand to ebb away. Except that before it does, Yuuri strikes again. And again. Again-again. Five slaps in all, and by the end of it, Victor is a writhing, moaning mess of a human being. But he did it. He was quiet.

The sixth time Yuuri touches his balls, it’s a caress. So gentle, especially by comparison, that Victor sighs into it.

“See?” Yuuri whispers. “I knew you could be quiet.”

And then he bends over and takes the head of Victor’s cock into his mouth, and Victor nearly bites clean through his own lip.

Yuuri’s mouth is soft and warm, and his tongue is an eager explorer, carefully tracing circles and lines over Victor’s skin. He pulls off and rearranges himself in a crouch for better access, and he kisses a line down the underside, then licks his way back up.

“God,” says Victor, watching.

Yuuri looks up, the flat of his tongue still pressed firmly against the length of Victor’s cock. It’s utterly obscene, and utterly lovely, and Yuuri flicks his tongue away and says, “Stay still.”

Victor’s cock pulses at the order, and he fists both hands into the bedclothes. Oh, he isn’t going to last very long like this.

Yuuri lavishes Victor’s cock with kisses. He suckles at the foreskin, nipping a little here and there, looking up to make sure that’s an okay thing to do. Which, yes, it definitely is. He cradles the shaft in his hands and pokes his tongue into the slit. He tastes and tastes and tastes, and there’s no art to it. None at all. Just raw desire, flowing from Yuuri into Victor, filling him up with love and fire and longing and lightning and—

And the bed dips under moving weight, and Yuuri’s hand is over his mouth—which is when Victor realizes he was shouting again, just now. He was shouting, and his body was moving of its own accord, following the rhythm of Yuuri’s touch, and he was close, he was _so close_ …

But Yuuri is kneeling at Victor’s side now, feet probably hanging over the side of the bed, eyes fixed sternly on his face, hand clamped firmly over his mouth. “Can you be quiet? Or do I have to gag you or something?”

Victor nearly comes right then, without so much as a finger on him, just from hearing the word _gag_ come out of Yuuri’s mouth. To think this is the same person who, only a few months ago, decided that katsudon was the embodiment of _eros_.

Victor reaches up and touches his palm to Yuuri’s cheek. Yuuri frees Victor’s mouth. And Victor replies, “You can do whatever you want with me.”

Yuuri’s eyes flash again, and he leans down to kiss Victor, long and deep. It’s strange and wondrous, tasting the echo of his own skin on Yuuri’s lips, and before he knows it, he’s moaning again. And Yuuri starts giggling into his mouth.

“What?” Victor asks, pulling away.

Which just makes Yuuri laugh harder. “You are the _loudest person_ ,” he says.

Victor grins. “And what, exactly, do you plan on doing about that?”

Yuuri kisses him again, which seems to be a pretty good answer—but then the kiss is over and there’s a hand on his mouth again. And a hand on his cock, too, stroking a thumb over the leaking head. Victor breathes through his nose and looks up at Yuuri.

That’s when Victor comes.

The pressure on his cock is feather-light, but it’s the pressure on his mouth that does it. Yuuri’s hands over him, Yuuri’s bed under him, Yuuri’s love inside him, threading through every cell of his being like a tangible thing. Victor’s neck arches, exposing his throat; his back arches, pushing his chest up. His toes curl, and his thighs tremble, and as he spills into Yuuri’s hand with a muffled groan.

Yuuri increases the pressure on his cock, stroking harder, coaxing wave after wave out of him, and Victor can’t say anything, so he just lets it wash over him, lets his body express everything he feels: all the pleasure, all the love that’s too overwhelming, too big to fit inside him anymore. His eyes stay fixed on Yuuri, and he thinks, desperately, _Look at me. Watch me._

Yuuri does. He watches Victor’s face the whole time, his mouth parting, his throat working. His eyes go shiny, like he might be about to cry, and Victor feels—for the first time in such a long time—seen. Known.

Maybe even real.

The tremors pass eventually; Victor’s moans become whimpers, and the whimpers become nothing but breath. Yuuri frees his mouth—but his other hand lingers on Victor’s slowly-softening cock. Gently massaging, at first, and then just touching. His fingers, glistening with come, trace a line from the base of Victor’s cock across the hard muscles of his belly, past his navel, up to his chest, leaving a streak of wet in their wake.

“I can’t believe you just let me do that,” he says, shy once again.

“ _Let_ you,” Victor repeats, a puff of laughter escaping his lips. “God.”

Yuuri smiles, and he almost looks embarrassed—probably _would_ look embarrassed, but for those fingers of his, still wet, still trailing upward. They pass over one of Victor’s nipples, over his collarbone, up his neck, caressing his chin and finally landing on his bottom lip, silently asking for permission to enter. Victor opens his mouth, takes Yuuri’s fingers inside, and licks them clean.

“Look at you,” Yuuri murmurs, when he finally pulls his hand away. “Just look at you.”

“Look at _you_ ,” Victor counters with a smirk.

Yuuri looks painfully pleased, and tries to hide it by sliding off the bed and retrieving the same T-shirt that Victor used before. He wipes his own hands first, then, with a touch significantly gentler, wipes Victor down.

“Mm,” Victor says quietly, as the thin cotton passes over his thighs.

“This version,” Yuuri says. “This is the version of you that I want.”

A weak laugh bubbles up through Victor’s chest. “What, naked and in your bed with your hands all over me? That’s good, because that’s what you’re getting from now on. I am never moving from this spot.”

“Victor,” Yuuri says, and swats the filthy shirt across Victor’s abdomen.

“I mean it,” Victor says. “I live here now. All I need is a blanket.”

Yuuri frowns. “Oh, well, you’re lying on—”

But before he can finish, Victor grabs Yuuri and pulls him down, so he’s covering Victor from chest to toe with his own body.

“This will do,” Victor says.

Yuuri, with the most adorable squeaking noise anyone has ever made, buries his face in the dip where Victor’s neck meets his shoulder. Victor clutches him tight, hands pressed against the lean muscles of Yuuri’s small frame. He wonders how it will feel to hold Yuuri during the off-season, when his training diet can be ignored a little more often. He wonders if softness will replace muscle, if Yuuri will be a heavier weight upon him when they’re lying like this.

He can’t wait to find out.

“I love you,” he tells Yuuri, in Russian. Then, again, in English: “I love you.”

Yuuri says something in Japanese, the words half-muffled by the skin of Victor’s shoulder. Victor understands.

Eventually, they find their way under Yuuri’s blankets, and this time they lie face to face. Yuuri’s lips are only inches away, his breath ghosting against Victor’s cheeks.

“Did you like that?” he asks Yuuri, for the second time tonight.

This time, there’s no hesitation: “It was amazing. The way you just…” Yuuri laughs quietly to himself and doesn’t finish his sentence. “How about—um—what about you? Was that okay?”

Was that _okay_? This boy. Honestly.

“Two hundred points for the short, four hundred points for the free,” Victor says. “World records broken all around, and a new personal best for me.”

“Oh, shut up,” says Yuuri, still laughing.

Victor pulls him in for a kiss.

It lasts for minutes, or perhaps weeks, with skin pressed against skin, warm under the blankets. Finally, when it ends, Yuuri asks Victor to turn onto his side—and then Yuuri curls around him, the bigger spoon even though he isn’t the bigger person. Victor feels the press of lazy kisses against the skin of his neck, his shoulders, and he feels it as much as hears it when Yuuri murmurs, sleepily, “This is so much better than posters.”

Victor, three-dimensional and flesh-and-blood and cocooned in the safety of Yuuri’s arms, finds himself smiling. It’s a smile he hasn’t practiced before. A smile he will never see reflected back at him in a mirror, or in the glossy pages of a magazine. It’s for him alone.

And for Yuuri.

“Yeah,” he whispers into the dark. “It is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading this, guys. I really mean that. I started this fic over a month ago, and it was supposed to be a little one-shot about Victor finding Yuuri's poster collection -- but then Victor didn't react nearly the way I thought he would, and everything just kinda spiraled out from there. And here we are. I hope you liked it.
> 
> Another shout-out to my awesome beta and awesomer friend [@airspaniel](http://archiveofourown.org/users/airspaniel/pseuds/airspaniel), who can finally stop listening to me whine about this fic now. Go read her stuff. She's hella talented.


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